Keep Track of Julia: September 2023

Time for an update.

My French classes have been intermittent as my student's grandmother dies and then someone in her husband's family did the same. They had 40 days of mourning with prayers and huge meal donations for the grandmother. Some kind of Muslim ritual.

Swimming was also going along until I had an open sore on my back that wouldn't heal. After 3 weeks I went to a dermatologist who determined that it was a basal cell carcinoma, as I had suspected. She referred me to a surgeon who I saw within 5 minutes of leaving her. He wanted to do the surgery that afternoon, but I did not want to go to the hospital he was proposing, so we had to delay to the next day. He did the surgery under a local anesthetic at the Lakeside Seventh Day Adventist Hospital. We could not do it in the afternoon after the dermatologist as it was a Saturday; the sabbath for Seventh Day Adventists and the hospital's OR was closed.

He did a handy job, cutting out a piece 30mm long and 18mm deep. They did the biopsy in 3 days. It was determined to be cancerous but he had fully excised it, so no further action was required. I had to go back after 4 days for him to remove the one outer stitch. He was more than 30 minutes late for which I called him out. He didn't like that. Doctors think they are gods. In his pique, he did not take out the stitch and tried to scare me with the lab report. Such an asshole, but a adequate surgeon. My friend Lesley removed the stitch the next day. She was a nurse practitioner. She also confirmed my own belief that the whole business wasn't that serious.

Before stitch removal

I did manage to get a really bad cold from hanging out at the hospital which took me 2 weeks to recover from

Then I had to order anew swimming gear as the problem was caused by sun damage. Serves me right for having been a sun slave from almost the day I was born. I now have a full body swim suite with UV protection, a du cloth to cover my head and forehead and SPF 60 waterproof sunblock for my hands, feet and face. I will look a real treat with all that on including goggles and earphones, but I don't care so long as I can swim.

Breakfasts at the Grand Kandyan and mahjong also continue. Nice distractions from the everyday routine.

I also went a movie at the cinema after almost 15 years. There is a new dual theatre cinema in Kandy town so Simon, Pauline and I went off to see the latest and hopefully last Indiana Jones opus, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. It was not bad, but Harrison Ford is getting a bit long in the tooth. The theatre was very comfortable and clean. Only the sound was so loud that I had to put in my ear buds to keep from going deaf. Popcorn was good too. Dinner afterwards at the Royal Bar rounded off a nice evening.

I finally got a permanent bridge for my two front teeth. Sajeewa did a great job as usual and I now have an even more charming smile. More work to come before the end of the year.

Another group that I join intermittently called the Discussion Club met at a café in Kandy town. I joined them after a long absence as I ran into one of the members at the dentist where he asked me to attend. It was fine. I took the opportunity to order a take away pizza from a wood burning pizza place up the street. Great pizza.

It was Ralph's birthday on July 23 at the Kandy Sports Club. The morning was taken up by decorating the hall and then the party in the afternoon. I saw some friends that I had not seen in a while.

Film Club is ongoing and despite my best efforts, it seems that I am doomed to continue attending.

Ralph's son, David and his partner were visiting for 3 weeks, so I had them over for drinks with Lesley and Ralph before they left. Nice couple.

Tula's bathroom upstairs was leaking and causing water damage to my bathroom below and pieces of the ceiling to drop off. It finally got fixed and now I am getting estimates for painting the house and doing a few general maintenance things that have been left for too long. I celebrated 9 years in this house on September 1, so it is time.

The Kandy Club has new caterers. The old ones have been hired by the Kandy Sports Club so they can continue with their bad food and service there. The new caterers at the Kandy Club are much better as a couple of hopper nights can attest. The food is now hot, there is more selection, the cook has figured out to make a bull's eye hopper (that is a hopper with a sunny side up egg in the bottom) with all the white cooked and the yolk soft. Happy days!

A perfect bull's eye hopper

Michael Moonesinghe, who makes scones, soups and other baked goods came up from Colombo with a delivery. Deanne very kindly invited me out for lunch at the pickup location. Ran into Malcolm and Viv Wright making for a bit of a gang.

Lesley and Ralph have had me over for Sunday lunch a couple of times as well as one poya day during the Perahera.

We couldn't think of a place to go for dinner one night, so we ordered from an Indian restaurant that had been recommended by a number of people; Dindigul Thalappakatti. It is a franchise operation originating in Tamil Nadu. The South Indian food may be good, but the extensive North Indian stuff was rubbish.

The Kandy Perahera was on from August 17 to 31 which means that Kandy city is dry for 10 days. Instead of going out for dinner, a few of us ordered from Pizza Hut and chowed down at my place where booze was also to be had. A very pleasant surprise with Pizza Hut. Apart from a lot of strange Sri Lankan inspired pizzas, they have some of the classics which we ordered. They were very good. An experience to be repeated.

After a long time wanting to do it, I finally had my eyebrows tattooed. I am getting tired of dying my eyebrows. Really a combination of micro-blading and tattooing. It took a long time and was painful as my hairdresser forgot the desensitizing cream. Finally, it scabbed up and healed, leaving nothing much to show for it. I am sure that Sunderi will want to touch it up. I think I will pass, get my money back and use an eyebrow pencil.

After a bit of toing and froing with the Canadian High Commission, I finally got my new passport. Initially, I could not contact anyone to talk to as when you call, you get the usual phone tree only to find out that the Consular Section only takes calls between 1300 and 1600, Monday to Thursday. I left two voice messages without a response. Finally, I called around 1545 and got a human being who sounded like a Canadian as opposed to a local hire. She had obviously not checked her emails as she sounded completed surprised when I said I had left two messages.

Then it was a struggle to determine that I could actually send the application by courier. That required an exchange of 4 emails. Finally, I sent the application down to Colombo by speed post courier, registered. The security fools at the high commission rejected it. That occasioned another string of phone calls. Again I couldn't get anyone as the high commission is closed not only on all Sri Lankan holidays (Sri Lankan having more public holidays than any other place barring Nepal and Burma who lead the pack) but all the Canadian ones as well. Must be hard to get anything done with all that time off.

This time the mailbox of the Consular Section was full, so you could not leave any messages. I finally badgered the poor receptionist into giving me the mobile number of someone in the Consular Section. This is after demanding to speak to a Canadian diplomat. Apparently you cannot do that without an email request. Your tax dollars at work!

The woman I got was a local hire, but proved to very helpful. They should fire everyone else except Suhanya Vijeratnam. She made the necessary arrangements. This time the application was accepted. They tell you that it will take 20 working days to issue the new passport. Suhanya notified me after 4 days that the thing was ready for pickup. Happily, my French student was in Colombo and went to pick it up. Turns out that she knows Suhanya from her own experience of applying for a PR visa to Canada.

When I went to the local sub-post office to send my passport application to Colombo, I encountered the lone clerk updating her date stamp. She was using something out of the 19th century, with movable type for the stamp.

I just had to have a picture

On the animal front, we now have a family of mongoose coming up to the house quite regularly. I found Chewy sitting with an adult mongoose on the bottom stoop. They were quite happy together. Then one of the adults was walking around the front garden with two little ones. They did not run away when I came to see them. Just went around the side of the house and down to the lower garden where they have their burrow.

These are not mine. Mine only have two young. But you get the idea.

Surprisingly, a rat snake was also spotted. Very unusual considering the resident mongoose. (Terry don't look)

Again not the one in our yard, but the most common. Garandiya in Sinhala.

The most exciting was the arrival of a peacock. There are a couple of peacocks and some peahens living across the paddy field. You can hear them as they are very noisy birds, but I have never seen one up close. Here he is:

Kumari was throwing rice to him which he was really enjoying.

Both Chewy and Buddy were very curious but kept their distance as he is about 3 or 4 times bigger than they are.

No peahens around, so he did not unfurl his tail.

At first we were very quiet approaching him but then we started talking normally. He wasn't bothered in the least.

There was a bit of a kerfuffle going on late one night outside my dressing room window. When I went to investigate, I found Chewy trying to grab a Red-backed Woodpecker. They are quite common here and fairly large growing to between 26 to 29 cm. I locked Chewy up and then helped the stunned bird go on his way.